Tag Archives: gardens

I finally have a day to post the last of my visit to Lexington, Kentucky. The State Botanical Garden of Kentucky is located on the University of Kentucky campus Arboretum and is open on weekdays. It has a 2-mile paved walking path that I enjoyed early one morning to try to avoid the heat of the day.

The Arboretum has eight regions representing the different ecological areas of Kentucky including Appalachian Plateau, Bluegrass, mountain and wetlands areas, with woods containing 70 different varieties of oak trees. This map shows just one of the garden areas, this one dedicated to the home garden.

Here and there are lovely fountains and sculptures.

I didn’t see what kind of flower this one was, but you know I love white flowers.

This was part of the home demonstration area too, showing container gardening and bed planting.

The Knot Garden has plantings to appear like knots. What a fun idea for a circular bed.

Beautiful purple flowers were attracting the pollinators.

Several areas have benches and peaceful views to relax, like this little pond with fish and a babbling stream.

Hibiscus flowers were in full bloom in several colors.

Out on the paved section around the back side, there were a number of unpaved paths taking short strolls to get closer views of the oak trees and other trees.

<

Wildlife was taking advantage of the warm day, like this little rabbit nibbling on the grass.

Cottage roses, grasses and lavendar in the back made for a sweet fragrant walk in this garden.

This sculpture was really captivating. It was a memorial sculpture for Comair Flight #5191 victims, where 49 people were killed in August 2006 when their plane crashed on take off at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington. (Thank you, Ramona for the correction.) The birds seem to be in full flight, and turning.

Walking around the sculpture, the view changed with each step.

White hibiscus bloomed along a stone wall.

Wetlands near the back corner of the property had a raised walkway with displays to tell the visitor about the region and the plants. The ecological impact of wetlands is important to the planet and there was much to see here.

Interesting colors in foliage set off more greenery and hydrangeas, as I made my way back toward the entrance.

Stunning pink color on these hydrangeas!

This area is plant testing for garden centers, I’ll bet some of these varieties make it into most home gardens. I know I recognized some marigolds, petunias and impatiens that I have had before.

Candy striped petunias are being tested for future seed offerings.

Pink and orange varieties of zinnias are blooming well.

Canna Orange Shade is a such vibrant color! Looks like fall doesn’t it?

The Arboretum has the Stout Daylily Collection, an entire garden of award winning daylilies covering years. The Stout Silver Medal is the highest award given to the daylily hybrid, and only one award is given each year. The exhibit includes winners going back to 1950, with about half of the winning cultivars represented. The Arboretum is looking for the years they are missing.

This lovely purple and yellow striped one was blooming profusely.

This is the first double bloom daylily I have ever seen. I don’t know what its name was.

Pollinators like this tiny butterfly were having a field day with all the blooms.

This one was interesting in the shape of the petals and the variegated color.

More places to sit and enjoy the day were on the path near the visitor center.

Red calibrachoa near the entrance, I had to get one last shot before leaving the arboretum.

It was a lovely morning, but by the time I finished the two mile hike, the temperature and humidity were climbing. So, off to get some cold water and a shower before hitting the bookstores and quilt shops I showed you last month. I hope you enjoyed the tour!

Like this:

This past weekend a cool front came through, lowered the humidity and made Sunday a perfect day for gardening. I had weeds to pull, and some other tasks, so I got busy. Get ready for a picture heavy post, there is a lot to see in the garden today. Late June sees more flowering plants showing their beauty, beginning with the hostas around the large oak in the front of the house.

Aren’t these flowers pretty? The variegated purple and white is so interesting close up.

Hosta volunteers are appearing along the driveway too.

In the flower bed, the gladiolas are blooming, tall spires of apricot color flowers.

The rain last weekend beat them over a bit, so I cut them and brought them inside for a vase. Gladiolas will continue to open up after being cut, so they make wonderful vase flowers for the kitchen.

Up on the veranda, I hit the clearance rack at the local big box garden center and came home with more small plants to fill up the remaining pots.

I replaced the dead white poinsettia with a variegated coleus, planted more begonias and impatiens, and arranged a few more pots near the front door.

Looking from the other side, I have groupings of pots with all kinds of colors. The torenias are now trailing down to the railing, and I am considering entering one in the State Fair gardening competition. I still want to find some metal plant racks to add some varying heights to the groups. On the lower right, you can see the amaryllis set where the remaining leaves can soak up the sun over the summer for another bloom next year. I am debating repotting it.

I found a red salvia for the white ceramic vase, now a pot. The yellow celosias on the left have been disappointing, they haven’t gotten any bigger.

The corner that gets a lot of sun now has a full complement of colors and sizes. The yellow daisies were deadheaded and are now blooming again. A red geranium gives a pop of bright color. The purple flowers in the lower left pot are calibrachoas, a flower I had never heard of before, but on sale so gave it a try. We’ll see how it grows. Pink petunias in the middle, and on the right is a lettuce crop coming up from the second planting of seeds.

Small ceramic decorative pots have pink impatiens and begonias, set on the table as a centerpiece.

Back out in the flower bed, I got the weeding done, and decided to dig up the first clump of day lilies. In that spot I put a new-to-me perennial called a penstemon. I had to keep the insert from the pot to remember what it was, LOL!! It is supposed to bloom all summer and get 15-18 inches tall.

Then in the middle of the iris bed, I put a perennial lollipop verbena, to give some color there after the iris is done.

This group of day lilies went into pots, and will be given to friends. This started as one plant a few years ago and has prolifically propagated itself.

While I was digging up weeds and day lilies, I found this little volunteer snapdragon. So I moved it to the front of the bed since its color was so pretty.

Speaking of snap dragons, the bargain plants I got last year for a quarter are putting on another wave of blooms. Another basil plant is doing well, good thing as I have an heirloom tomato and some mozzarella for a caprese salad.

The dianthus pinks should be done by now, but they are blooming again too.

Long view of the front bed after the glads were cut, day lilies dug and all the weeds were pulled, there are still some bare spots to fill in. My tomato plants are doing well, growing larger this year and flowering, but no tomatoes yet.

The tomatoes in the large pot are growing and flowering now too.

The hydrangeas continue to bloom in three colors on one plant. I’d like more purple and pink blooms so I added some lime to the top soil.

I am hoping for a few really pretty pink blooms to add to my table centerpiece. I’m having a few friends over for lunch, and I’ll show you that tablescape soon.

Petunias in the pots are going well too, the white is lovely.

Lastly, out back the rhododendrons are blooming now. The blooms are sparse due to the lack of sun the plants get being under the canopy of tall trees.

The flowers are pretty though, the bush on the left has white flowers with a blush of pink on the buds.

The bush on the right is pure white, both buds and blooms.

I did get a clematis, and got it planted. It is light pink one. I really waited too late for a good selection at the garden center.

I have given up on getting any strawberries, and converted this pot to one with pretty yellow calibrachoa and some flat leaf parsley.

One last flower to share, I planted a lovely purple phlox just Wednesday.

There will be more to do soon, I want to move the irises from the upper planter box to the bed below, dig up the rest of the day lilies in the planter to move somewhere else, and add more perennials to the front bed. Of course, there will be more weeds to pull soon too. But the wonderful thing about living here is the mild climate that makes flowers easy to grow, both wild and cultivated. I didn’t show you the honeysuckle that is taking over the side yard, or the peaches that are ripening still. I haven’t seen the bears lately, so maybe I will get some of the peaches, but they are not ready to harvest yet. Speaking of critters, there has been a fair amount of wildlife here lately, and I’ll show you the recent visitors on Sunday.

Like this:

It was one of those weekends where everything went just right. We had two car club events scheduled for Friday night and Saturday morning, but the remnants of a tropical storm threatened to scuttle our plans. On Friday nights all summer long, our small town does free band concerts called Music on Main. People bring their interesting cars to park on the road, paying a $5 fee to be in the show which goes to charity. We always have a fun time, and go as often as we can. We had a discussion as to whether or not our new car would be welcome, but the Classic Car Club members in charge of the show said yes, they’d love to have us park on the street with the newer models. Our white two-seat convertible Fiat Spider is still a bit rare in this part of the country. The car next to us is a replica kit car.

We parked and walked just a block off Main street to a new restaurant called Olive or Twist on the corner of Barnwell and Church. If you are local, or you come up to visit, have a meal here. The food is really good, and they specialize in small appetizer plates, and specialty martinis. I like having a meal like that, shared with friends, ordering a bunch of appetizers and grazing off all the choices. The four of us at the table had shrimp cocktail, spinach artichoke dip with chips, smoked trout, baja fish tacos, fried oysters and a tuna-tini. This was the second time I have eaten here and the food was consistently good. In the evening, they have a light jazz group playing live music and we enjoyed that before the main concert on the center stage began downtown.

The band was Special Edition, playing lots of oldies from mostly the 1970s and 80s. This is a permanent stage set up to do concerts and events in the summer and fall. It is downtown next to the Visitors Center. I’ve done posts on this summer music series with car shows before, and you can see more on Summer Fun and Friday Night in a Small Town.

Further down, the rest of our British contingent were mostly parked together.

Lots of other old cars were there too, I won’t show you all the pictures I took, LOL, but they will be on our BCCWNC.org website in a couple of days. I need to collect the rest of the pictures the guys took.

The rain stayed west until after the concert was over and we were home. Whew, dodged the first downpour, now for Saturday’s event. We were a bit afraid that the rain would extend into the morning as it rained most of the night, but we got up to mostly clear skies. Meeting up with a bunch more club members in a parking lot in Fletcher, we were in for a wonderful drive. We set out on Mills Gap Road heading up to Hooper’s Creek.

Through lovely green areas with trees and lots of fresh grass, fragrant from the overnight rain. The clouds were building, but we hoped for the best.

Out in West Henderson county, we stopped for a brief photo-op of these huge cow statues. If you are local and want to see them, they are on Old Clear Creek Road. We were told that the Paul Bunyon statue is nearby, but we didn’t look for it.

We wound around the apple orchards, with the trees heavy with ripening fruit. We still have about 8 weeks to go to get fresh apples. With the abundant rain and sunshine, it should be a good harvest.

More of our beautiful roads, our route took almost an hour.

Our destination was Troyer’s Amish Farm. I posted about this wonderful place last year, showing a lot more of the farm and the country store. Click Here to see more. Members parked on the green, and had our lunch in their new pavilion behind the cars.

They have added to the gardens as well.

After lunch, we caravan drove over to a members home, like we do every year, to see Mary Alice’s gardens and have dessert. Her home was on the Garden Tour from Asheville this year, and they estimate that they had about 1000 people visit their garden over the course of the event. You can see why, her gardens are just wonderful, full of flowers and veggies! That is her greenhouse next to their home at the top of the hill.

I’ve shown her gardens before too, click on Mary Alice’s Garden to see more of her gorgeous flowers, along with the treehouse and some of the other features of their home.

She has a new ‘she-shed’ for potting and doing the artistic things she does. It is all reclaimed wood, and recycled windows. Built by husband, Terry, it is a true marvel, right next to the vegetable patch.

Inside is rustic, and the creek can be heard babbling just outside the shed. I love the old glass.

Inside her home on her table, she has a chrysalis house. She has found a number of monarch chrysalis on her plants, and brought them inside to protect them until the butterflies emerge. As usual, she had the perfect thing to keep them, a little metal house with glass panels to use as an incubator.

Thankfully, the rain held off until the club members had toured the gardens and eaten most of the three cakes offered for dessert. We sprinted for the car as the rain came on, thankful that we made it through both events before it let loose.

Follow Blog via Email

I’m now an affiliate for both Amazon and Fat Quarter Shop, using my links will enable me to make a small commission on any sales without affecting your prices. You can still use your existing accounts with those vendors. Thank you for using my links!!

Fat Quarter Shop Affiliate Link

I receive a small commission on sales.

Scrap Dance Waltz is available on Craftsy!

Scrap Dance Tango Available on Craftsy

Buy my Scrap Dance digital pattern on Craftsy

Visit my Etsy Store for vintage and handmade items, and more!

Featuring handmade items and vintage treasures.

See all my patterns on Craftsy!

Free patterns and patterns available for purchase

Search for:

Amazon Affiliate Link – From My Carolina Home is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Maple Star Table Topper Moda Bake Shop Recipe!

Jelly Roll Market Bag – scrap project

Flash Sale! See what you can get today!

Affiliate Link to Today's Flash Sale!
I will receive a small commission using this link.